Siemens, GlobalFoundries Keep Win Over Chip-Identifying Patents

The Federal Circuit said a lower court was justified in canceling chip component-identification patents asserted in an infringement suit against Siemens AG and GlobalFoundries Inc.

Oasis Tooling Inc.'s US Patent Nos. 7,685,545 and 8,266,571 describe processes to identify similarities and differences between tiny semiconductor components called cells, but they’re “directed to an abstract idea” because they capture a process that can be “performed in a human mind,” wrote Judge Alan D. Lourie.

It doesn’t change the analysis “that human minds are unable to parse, standardize, and digest the data like a computer in doing so,” Lourie said in a six-page ...